Identity Verification in Ghana

Verify a Ghanaian identity document — Ghana Card, Voter ID, or Passport — and retrieve the holder's identity details including name, date of birth, and gender.

Prerequisites

You'll need an API key. See Quickstart or Authentication if you don't have one yet.

Note: Verification endpoints use an API key in the X-API-Key header — not a Bearer token. Verification POST requests also require an Idempotency-Key header.

Supported document types

All three return the same response shape — only the request idType and idNumber format differ.

Make the verification request

Submit the document via the identity verification endpoint. Set country to GH and idType to one of the values above.

Ghana Card

curl -X POST https://api.lira.com/api/v1/verify/identity \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: YOUR_IDEMPOTENCY_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "country": "GH",
    "idType": "ghana_card",
    "idNumber": "GHA-123456789-0"
  }'

Voter ID

curl -X POST https://api.lira.com/api/v1/verify/identity \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: YOUR_IDEMPOTENCY_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "country": "GH",
    "idType": "voter_id",
    "idNumber": "1234567890"
  }'

Passport

curl -X POST https://api.lira.com/api/v1/verify/identity \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: YOUR_IDEMPOTENCY_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "country": "GH",
    "idType": "passport",
    "idNumber": "G1234567"
  }'

Request body fields

idNumber format requirements

Optional validation (cross-check)

You can include a validation object to check whether specific caller-provided fields match the registry record. The response will include a validation object indicating whether each submitted field matched, and the verification status becomes inconclusive if any field does not match.

curl -X POST https://api.lira.com/api/v1/verify/identity \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: YOUR_IDEMPOTENCY_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "country": "GH",
    "idType": "ghana_card",
    "idNumber": "GHA-123456789-0",
    "validation": {
      "firstName": "Kwame",
      "lastName": "Mensah",
      "dateOfBirth": "1990-04-12"
    }
  }'

Note: Cross-check fields are never persisted on the verification record and never logged. They are compared in-memory against the registry response and only the boolean match result is stored.

Read the result

Successful verification

{
  "id": "c3d4e5f6-...-...-...-...",
  "status": "success",
  "verificationType": "GHANA_CARD",
  "idType": "ghana_card",
  "country": "GH",
  "identifier": "GHA-123456789-0",
  "verifiedAt": "2026-05-26T10:00:00.000Z",
  "origin": "api",
  "verified": true,
  "firstName": "Kwame",
  "lastName": "Mensah",
  "middleName": "Kofi",
  "dateOfBirth": "1990-04-12",
  "gender": "M",
  "validation": null
}

Inconclusive verification (cross-check mismatch)

When you include validation and at least one submitted field does not match the registry record, status is inconclusive and validation.<field>.match reports per-field results.

{
  "id": "c3d4e5f6-...-...-...-...",
  "status": "inconclusive",
  "verificationType": "GHANA_CARD",
  "idType": "ghana_card",
  "country": "GH",
  "identifier": "GHA-123456789-0",
  "verifiedAt": "2026-05-26T10:00:00.000Z",
  "origin": "api",
  "verified": false,
  "firstName": "Kwame",
  "lastName": "Mensah",
  "middleName": "Kofi",
  "dateOfBirth": "1990-04-12",
  "gender": "M",
  "validation": {
    "firstName": { "value": "NotKwame", "match": false },
    "lastName":  { "value": "Mensah",   "match": true },
    "dateOfBirth": { "value": "1990-04-12", "match": true }
  }
}

Failed verification

{
  "id": "c3d4e5f6-...-...-...-...",
  "status": "failed",
  "verificationType": "GHANA_CARD",
  "idType": "ghana_card",
  "country": "GH",
  "identifier": "GHA-000000000-0",
  "verifiedAt": "2026-05-26T10:00:00.000Z",
  "origin": "api",
  "error": {
    "code": "IDENTIFIER_NOT_FOUND",
    "message": "No identity record found"
  }
}

Response fields

Ghana-specific notes

• A Ghana Card number is issued by the National Identification Authority (NIA) and is the most reliable identity document for KYC. The standard format is GHA-XXXXXXXXX-X but variations exist.
• Voter ID numbers reflect the Electoral Commission's current state. A reissued voter card may resolve to the same person under a new number — old numbers will fail.
• Passport records may omit dateOfBirth and middleName; treat both as optional in your downstream code.
• Date of birth on the registry record is the source of truth. If your form collects DOB and you use the validation.dateOfBirth cross-check, a mismatch is a strong fraud signal — surface it to a manual review queue.

Error handling

For the full error code reference, see Errors.

Warning: Do not surface raw error.code values directly to end users. Map them to user-friendly messages in your application (e.g. IDENTIFIER_NOT_FOUND → "We couldn't verify that document. Please check the number and try again.").

Next steps

• Identity Verification Overview — supported identity document types and countries
• BVN in Nigeria — verify Nigerian Bank Verification Numbers
• Bank Account in Ghana — verify Ghanaian bank accounts
• Errors — complete error code reference